Anastomosis devices and their associated procedures are generally used for connecting or re-connecting certain body tissues, e.g., as part of a surgical procedure. In typical situations, these tissues generally define a body lumen such as a blood vessel or intestinal, digestive or urinary tissue that has been severed and requires reconnection to complete a successful treatment.
Prior to the development and use of anastomosis devices, a surgeon generally performed delicate suturing operations with tiny, fine needles to reconnect these tissues. However, these suturing techniques to connect severed body lumens were a difficult and technique-sensitive task. One factor that especially made the suturing task difficult was that in joining these body lumens, there was often a very small or limited amount of tissue to work with, such as, for example, at the urethral stump and the bladder neck. In addition, tissue such as ureters, a proximal nerve bundle and sphincter, tend to be extremely sensitive. Due to these factors, the suturing technique requires extreme care to avoid complications such as leakage, difficulty in healing or failure to heal, or specific conditions such as incontinence or impotence.
In order to overcome the difficulties associated with conventional suturing techniques, anastomosis devices utilizing a variety of tissue approximating structures to maintain severed tissue in close approximating during healing have been developed. Representative anastomosis devices include those described in U.S. Patent Publications 2005/0070938A1, 2005/0131431A1, 2006/0200178A1 and 2006/0206122A1, which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety and are commercially available from American Medical Systems of Minnetonka, Minn. These anastomosis devices advantageously use tissue approximating structures to reconnect severed tissues during anastomosis procedures, which can both reduce the risks during the surgical procedure and also provide a significant reduction in the amount of time required to perform certain anastomosis procedures. Because the anastomosis device will typically be surgically positioned within the patient for a significant period of time (e.g., while the healing process takes place), there is a need for the device to be sufficiently strong and flexible to accommodate the various stresses to which the device may be subjected while positioned within the patient.
One representative procedure utilizing these anastomosis devices can include a radical prostatectomy procedure in which, a surgeon removes all or most of a patient's prostate. The procedure generally leaves a severed urethral stump and a severed bladder neck, which must be reconnected so as to restore proper urinary functions. Through the use of a combination of retention features including an inflation balloon and a plurality of tissue approximating structures described as extendable tines, the urethral stump and bladder neck can be aligned and retained in approximation throughout a healing period for the tissue. While the urethral stump and bladder neck forcibly hold the tissue during healing, the anastomosis device provides a drainage lumen allowing bodily fluids and other materials to pass during the healing period.
While the aforementioned anastomosis device effectively reconnects tissue during certain surgical procedures, it would be advantageous to further improve upon the existing device to increase ease of use and increased patient safety.